Louis, Lestat and Character Development

by Kathleen Hunter

Slight intro: This essay was originally posted on the Anne Rice Books mailing list. The topic was why Anne Rice has stopped developing Louis while Lestat has become a dynamic character. Kathleen Hunter wrote a reply to Dejan's post (which I have included in italics for reasons of continuity). After reading her response, it left me breathless for she has just written what my Louis obsessed mind was always trying to point out to all the others. For that I have placed it on my website because I would never want this lost. -- SilverHawk

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Dejan wrote: there is something shallow about the way Rice portrays this Louis as some sort of a stereotype. I think it's the way expatriate writers perceive the fallen aristocracy of the Old World. A little bit like the American-Canadian perception of Diana.

I agree entirely with Dejan that Rice's depiction of Louis -- while not as paltry and one-dimensional as the one Neil Jordan thrust at us -- is sadly not as developed as it might have been. Louis is consistently underrated as a result of being under-developed as a character in the novels; and while Lestat does tend to fall into the stereotype of superhero at times, the caricatures of Louis are far more troubling and, I think, unfair. (And again, I blame the film for the image of Louis that has been perpetuated over time, since it left an impression of him that was so far from the novel as to barely resemble the man! Crucial scenes from the pages of Rice's book were expunged or changed, leaving us with a cardboard cutout figure of gloom and doom that was only further enhanced by Lestat's own wildly manic behaviour. Both men suffered a sublime disservice by what *wasn't* brought to the screen.)

Rice's own reasons for abandoning Louis are well documented. Only the most careful readers, as well as those who have an affinity for his elegance, style, intellect, and profound strength, will note his evolution over time throughout the chronicles. Admittedly it is not as flamboyant as Lestat's -- hence not as noticeable to the untrained eye -- nor is his progress accompanied by an embrace of the superficial accoutrements of our current age. (Sitting on leather couches in a smoked glass room staring at wide-screen television is no real proof of evolution.)

However subtle it might be, Louis' unique approach to his plight should not be mistaken as a failure to evolve. His progress is no less impressive for being an interior one and his choices, despite not being in synch with Lestat's, are no less valid. If anything, keeping one's own company in a vine-clad candle-lit cottage where the walls groan with books seems a far more enlightened response to the madness of the 21st c. than any I can think of!? (In fact it most closely mirrors my own... )

I personally consider Louis the more erudite and appealing of the two for his more realistic -- if not pragmatic -- approach to his fate. (e.g., Ridding his personal life of humans much as a dieter rids the house of sweets makes perfect sense to me. What wisdom is there in tormenting yourself needlessly by what you cannot have? Does it make you more brave? More a hero? Eschewing the company of mortals is, if anything, a practical choice for a vampire who so values human life.) Easy enough for readers to say they 'identify' more with Lestat -- his brave response to his condition is something to which any mortal might aspire! But I would argue that Louis' response is the more typical and the more honest. We can't all be heroes, after all, and for some of us "heroism" is a series of quiet victories, achieved on the battlefields of the heart and mind, away from life's glare.

In some ways I think it comes down to taste, and Louis' tastes should not be considered a reflection of his emotional health. It seems unfair to me that an affinity for the archaic in a mortal is most often seen as a charming affectation or whimsical style, while in a vampire it is perceived as a symbol of his unwillingness to move on. I'm reminded of the old joke about the woman who peered with some misgivings at a chaotic three-dimensional work in the Museum of Modern Art.

Woman: I don't like it....
Curator: Well... you're wrong.

"What was stronger than his thirst? His will."

Louis has a very strong will and a very determined sense of who he is. It just doesn't happen to mesh with Lestat's vision of what Louis should be; and readers should take care not to filter their opinion of Louis through Lestat's eyes or Lestat's very different tastes.

Dejan: Lestat seems to be a much more developed, and original, character.

Again I totally agree that Rice spends far more time on Lestat, and in his capacity as narrator of all but the first of the chronicles it's inevitable that the other vampires will get less airtime or be developed as fully. (Although she seems to be attempting to correct this with her recent forays into the histories of Pandora and Armand.)

Indeed we have very little of Louis' preternatural existence on record. His reminiscences in IwtV were of a period of time fraught with a fledgling's uncertainty and turmoil. Any further knowledge of Louis comes to us from Lestat's pen and are little more than his own subjective recollections of their meetings. Lestat, on the other hand, has documented his 'evolution' for us over time in great detail and we have been allowed to chart his progress throughout every travail, blunder and growth experience. Still, in his own way I think Lestat is as much a stereotype as Louis, albeit at the opposite end of the spectrum. His 'heroique' gestures overshadow his substance at times, which is sad and also unfair. In fact I think that Rice has a tendency to over-emphasize these two as polar opposites, pushing the stereotype envelope, as it were to make her point.

But in Rice's defense, all stereotypes aside, at least she didn't create an homogenised vision of what a vampire should be. Her cast of characters is as disparate as any gathering could be and this, I think, is the true value and appeal of her work. There are as many supporters who identify and/or sympathise with Lestat (the risk-taker and man of action) as there are who feel a deep empathy for Louis (the conscience-laden thinker).. or with Armand.. or Daniel.. or Claudia.. or Marius. The appeal of Rice's world, I think, is that it doesn't present a one-dimensional vampire ethos, but rather a parallel universe not unlike our own, inhabited by thinkers, do-ers, children, self-absorbed fiends, those unable to feel and express, those who feel too acutely, those driven by conscience, those whose actions are without remorse. There is something of all of us in her different vampires and I think this is what propels her epic forward throughout the centuries, compelling our interest and desire to know more and to analyse how and why they feel and behave as they do. We are following our own progress as we follow theirs. They are, as Lestat has said, the sum of their faults... and so too are we more often than not.

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